A big lesson I learned was while serving for 14 months in Vietnam: I took a R&R (Rest and Recreation) in Thailand in the middle of my tour. (I actually volunteered to go to 'Nam so that I could express my disagreement without being called a coward by the love-it-or-leave-it crowd.) Thailand had a topography and people very similar to much of Vietnam, however the people were smiling. In 'Nam, smiles were rare, the country smelled, homes were rubble. The difference was largely war. No matter how bad the government was, it could not make the drastic difference I saw between the two countries. Communism was better than war anyday.

So to the Republican who thinks 3,000 combat deaths is insignificant, what are we doing to the country we invaded? Does that not count? What about the terrorist bombings we sponsored in Iran in 1954 that have lead to our strongman in Iran, his fall in 1979, and the U.S. sponsored friction between Sunnis and Shias? What about the U.S. enflamed tensions, murders, strife, hate, that is tearing the region apart? Baghdad used to be more integrated than most of our racially divided cities. Lebanon's economy and spirit were picking up. So, do the people of the country we invaded not count? I guess not if you are a Republican.

There is a real gestalt personality of a country that you can feel. Can the people look you, a Gringo, in the eye, despite their individual living standards? To see this you need to be more than a U.S. business man dealing with power brokers, or a President who never left the country until the Supreme Court selected him.

Countries with recent civil war or Communist control or U.S. exported coups and strongmen all have lower living standards. Living standards are not the main source of conflict, but external interference, aroused internal strife, particularly exploiting racial or religious differences, to me are the bigger factors in setting the mood of a people. This is unfair, unjust, reprehensible .. in my opinion.

And to do this so we can have cheap bananas, inexpensive copper wire for our MacMansions, fuel for our global warming SUVs, business expansion opportunities while we ''open" up economies under IMF mandated or constitution-forced rules. So, 3,000 soldiers (or 25,000 with wounded) is relatively insignificant for Republican business interests. But what about the countries, peoples, cultures, families we are destroying? Your two friends certainly claim the right not to be told what to do, but seem to claim the right to coerce others and obliterate variety. But why are we so focused only on 3,000 U.S. service personnel with so little honest concern about the 650,000 dead and the millions displaced? The 3,000 are truly insignificant - they were right but for the wrong reason.

It is amazing that 3,000 dead on Sept 11 was significant enough to initiate this embarrassing disaster. Additionally, while 40,000 die on our highways, half through alcohol abuse every year and 30,000 die from guns in our country every year, we do not want to do anything about that--serious DWI and speeding laws could be written or enforced and better gun control could be supported by Republicans. Hypocrisy. Additionally, since the annual 'terrorist' caused deaths have been in the low hundreds worldwide other than the Mideast since that day, the terrorist threat is politically manufactured by those who love walls, love hate, and love ignorance for selfish reasons.